บท 631: Temple of Sands
The group walked down the path to the temple, careful not to touch the obelisks or the river of sand flowing underground. Hera spent the entire time worried about her court. She didn't know if her blades would be able to move around inside the temple or not. What if going to a different area would be considered as if they were very far away? Then they would end up getting hurt in the process, and Hera would have to wait for some time before calling them again. Because of that, only Daskka, Nimbus, Lurize, Armory, and Scythe were currently out.
"You can give a Royal Quezt. Then I can move to the next area, and we can confirm how much mana I need," Lurize suggested.
"I agree with that idea. This would fix the issue of being in the same place or not. Or all of us who are not actually touching you could be in the legacy while you explore that area," Nimbus added.
"I think that is the safer option. We don't even know how many thresholds are in each room. If the blades start moving around too much, it might become problematic. Especially since we don't know what to expect when we are dealing with the curse," Daskka nodded.
"Calm down, everyone. We don't even know what that place looks like. Let's not make any rushed decisions," Hera stopped the discussion. She knew better than anyone how bad things could get if she started to overthink too much, especially if she didn't have enough information about whatever she was worrying about.
When they arrived at the temple proper, the party was in awe at the sheer scale of it all. Even the doors that seemed small in the distance were, in fact, massive eight-meter-wide and twenty-meter-tall doors. Inside the palace was even more impressive. A set of ten arches in the middle surrounded a large sand fountain. Several stairs would bring people to various rooms and passages that seemingly led nowhere since most only had small door frames connecting open areas. Not to say that there weren't proper rooms, but those were in much smaller numbers than everything else. After a quick glance, she was able to count about 40 possible thresholds that could be leading them to a different version of this area. She could also see three large walls in the room where the entrances would be, one in the north, one in the east, one in the west, and the open door they took in the south. Another thing that was very different from what they expected was the walls. Unlike the outside, where most of the temple seemed to be made out of constantly flowing sand, here, things were solid. Everything was made out of rock or stone in different shades of a pastel yellow and light orange, with some blues and grays peppered here and there. The only two places that actually had that same flowing sand appearance were the fountain in the center between the ten arches and the star drawn in the ceiling.
"You know, when you said that we had to move just five rooms deep, I didn't expect we would have this many options," Bonnie sighed.
"Me neither. I was thinking maybe ten at most, not what, fifty?" Hera looked around.
"Isn't it more than that? I mean, those areas between two frames on the side are also thresholds, are they not?" Adriel pointed to a couple of arches to the left. They were side by side with some space between the two, and he had a point. There was a chance that this place would consider that another threshold.
"You're right… man, we are in trouble," Blue scratched her head.
"Even more because we don't know if the next area will have the same layout. I mean, what if in the next area, some things change?" Shane added.
"Ok, no, hang on. Let me try Ariadne first. Best case scenario, it works. Worst case, I waste a question, and we can try again in one hour," Hera reached for her belt and pulled the flap that would make the visor face her. But before speaking, she looked up, "Can I use that mana stone that can lose mana?"
"Right, your questions now have a shorter cooldown," Helena nodded and reached for the mana stone that was in her possession, "Here. It's not completely full, but it has about 1 million mana left."
"Thanks, I'll use 200k for each question. I think that might be enough. If not, Ariadne will tell me," Hera took the mana stone and sent the 200 thousand mana to her relic before asking, "If we want to get to the area in this temple with the hot spring symbol in the ceiling, what is the first symbol we need to pass through?"
The mana left the stone, and the visor flickered with a single word appearing, 'Sunset.' After a few moments, the word vanished, and the picture of a sunset appeared with an orange sky, some clouds, and the silhouette of some sort of animal walking just in front of the sun. Still, it was too small for Hera to identify what it actually was.
"Oh… well, ok. We need to find the sunset symbol. It will be located there," Hera pointed up to the ceiling where a star of moving sand was. The drawing was extremely wide, and there were so many points to the star that Hera couldn't count, but its center and a ring around it were made out of the same flowing sands outside.
"Ok, so sunset. I guess we should start looking around?" Blue suggested while walking to the nearest threshold. She poked her head inside, still completely visible to the rest of the party, and then came out, "Not this one. It's a cooking pot of some sort."
"Well… that works," Shane chuckled, and the group spread out to do the same.
Hera also tested if Nimbus and Lurize could move beyond one of the thresholds by sending them with a magnet and a Royal Quest. Unfortunately, the moment they crossed to a different area and vanished from sight, the magnet was destroyed as Hera's entire mana pool vanished in an instant. Lurize ran back, feeling the half a million mana points that the Empress gave him to be drained at a rapid rate. From what they gathered, being just one single area away from her would be more costly than what Nimbus did when he flew to Sky in the Abyssal Depth.
Knowing this was the best option, Hera called her titled blades back, staying only with Scythe, Armory, and Daskka out. Everyone continued moving around, and after a couple of minutes, Mylo was the one who called everyone. He was in one of the thresholds on the third floor of this place, in one of the arches not connected to any walls.
Soon, the entire party crossed that area and saw the sunset Ariadne showed Hera, including the figure of a camel in front of the sun.
"Our options now are to wait here for Hera to get another question, or we can try to figure that out by ourselves. What do you guys think?" Helena asked.
"I don't want to just sit around while doing nothing for five hours. I mean, sure, we will probably need at least one or two more questions before getting there, but we might get lucky," Blue replied.
"I agree. Staying here will make us restless, and I'm pretty sure the curse will offer us the answers," Alex nodded.
"Will it? I mean, we are going to a place to get rid of it. Wouldn't it stop talking or give us wrong directions?" Shane turned to the assassin.
"I don't know. It never did that so far, and it already knows what we are trying to do. Maybe it thinks we won't be able to get rid of it," Alex shrugged.
"Well… ok then. If we are going around, let's split up. Everyone, be sure to keep track of where the doors you come through are. Take pictures if you need," Adriel looked around, "I think we can go with the usual setup. 3 groups, 2 of them with 3 people and Hera with one more person since she has her court."
"Yeah, even if it's weird here if something happens, I can call them out," Hera nodded.
"And I can go with you. That way, we have more people to look around. My drones can move back and forth without any issues since they don't use more mana if they are far away from me," Adriel smiled.
"I like that. Let's do it like this. In one hour, we can come back here, and Hera can ask Yarn… I mean, Ariadne, another question. Also, Hera, can you make a rock wall here? That way, if we somehow look through all the options beyond a threshold, we can mark the symbol we already cleared out, so no one is doing the same work twice," Shane suggested.
"Good call," Hera nodded, and they all walked down the stairs for her to make the wall. It would be better to have something like that in an area that is easy to get to instead of something that would make them come up three flights of stairs.
With that out of the way, they decided where each group would go and started searching around. Hera and Adriel took one of the entrances to an actual room, hoping to understand how those thresholds worked. In the end, it was more interesting than they expected. They walked inside a plain room with two entrances. The one they used to get here and another where the stairs should be located. Unfortunately, they weren't able to see the symbol from here, but that wasn't all bad since they would just be in the second step. They would need three more either way.
"So, I'm thinking the best option is to reach the fourth symbol and then keep trying for the fifth," Hera suggested as they crossed that secondary entrance, appearing in the center area of the palace again. However, here there were no sets of stairs, and there was a long corridor in the corner of the room inside a painting frame. It didn't look like that was a drawing but something real. Hera even tried to send a poison needle through the frame, and it worked. Her magic went far away before falling into the ground around 50 meters deep into that hallway.
"I think that's a dungeon," Adriel said.
"I agree. We can check that after dealing with the curse if we want to," Hera nodded, remembering the mention of the pioneer. There was a chance that they were the first to arrive in this room. If that were the case, it might be a good idea to move around this place and find some of the dungeons to get some free level-ups. She took a picture of the door they used to get here and then of the ceiling, which now showed the sunset and a scorpion around the star with a palm tree in the center, "One more room, then we start looking for the hot springs. Want to pick one?"
"Let's go to the arches in the center. That way, we can knock a few options really quickly," Adriel suggested.
"I like that," Hera nodded, and the two of them walked to the first arch. The next room had a telescope for its symbol, and now, the two of them were right in front of the fountain, surrounded by the 10 archways. After checking them one by one, it became clear that this wasn't the right path.
They stepped out and went to the next arch, which led them to the same location but with a new symbol on the ceiling. Then came the job of looking over all ten arches that, once again, resulted in nothing. They repeated that process five more times and entered the eighth arch in the center of the room when Adriel spoke up.
"Hera. Can we take a break for a moment? I want to talk to you."
"Is everything ok?" Hera asked.
"Yeah… well. No. I mean, sort of? I don't know," Adriel sighed, "Listen. I… I've been lying to you. To all of you."
"Do you want to break up with Alex and don't know how to?"
"What? No! I really like her," Adriel gasped.
"That's good. If it was the case, I might have to slap you for lying to her. So what's up? Are you spying on us or some shit?" Hera joked.
Adriel just stared at her, "Damn, you are good at that… Yeah, sort of. Not on you in particular, but I joined the Royal Explorers to sort of spy on Boothudurn and the dwarves who live there."
"YOU DID WHAT?!" Hera yelled, and her anger brought out her entire court, who quickly surrounded the elf as Lurize and Nimbus grabbed his arms, "No one hurts him! That's an order. I want to be the first," she said while clenching her teeth. She would be fine with almost anything, but hearing that someone came here to spy on the people of Boothudurn made her blood boil instantly. Those were the sweetest people she had ever met, and they trusted her. Rutigan didn't even look into Adriel's background. He just accepted her suggestion because she said she trusted him. If someone, anyone, was abusing their trust, she wouldn't forgive them no matter what.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. I can explain!" Adriel gasped.
"Start talking. And I swear if I find out you did anything to hurt any of them, I'll drop you in the Red Dunes and let you find a way back on your own."
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